Castaway days that changed their lives

Three years after the Castaway 2000 reality TV experiment, its participants are still feeling the effects, reports Karin Goodwin

Ben Fogle is having a busy morning. With a book to publicise he’s up at the crack of dawn to appear on the BBC’s Fred McCauley Show. After that there are meetings with his publisher before another radio appearance and a round of interviews.

It’s a far cry from a typical day in his life three years ago when, along with another 27 adults and eight children, Fogle took part in Castaway 2000, the first British reality TV experiment. Their task was to create a self-sufficient community on the Hebridean island of Taransay.

Life was tough. The island had been abandoned by its last residents more than 25 years previously and participants had their work cut out to make it inhabitable, arriving to gales and storms and recovering from a vicious flu epidemic. Since then, Fogle has idealised the island in his memory. “I’m still searching to recapture the Taransay